Harder but more rewarding: is there a better way?
Aboriginal people are used to be ignored and controlled and told what the answer is for them. Noel Pearson risks being just one of a long line of others who want to change the world without talking with Aboriginal people or without grounding his interventions in the evidence. Does he want to be a hero to the mainstream middle class elite who love the “pull yourselves up by your own boot straps” message? Or does he want to do the harder but more rewarding work of engaging with and bringing his own people along with him?
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Beaudy little Johnnie,
penalise the people. Fine them if the children don’t attend school.
Why not try a positive measure and reward the parents when the children attend.
As for the medical testing, if you test some you must test them all, and that includes the Europeans. Otherwise you are wasting everybody’s time and money.
Bruce Dudon
The truly horrible aspect of Howard’s intervention is that it has taken him so long to act. This problem is not new, it has been present and stedily getting worse during his 11 year tenure. Why is it that, in an election year, he has chosen to act?
It should come as no suprise to us that his policy is negative, backwards and basically laying all the blame on someone else. It’s what we have come to expect of him and his government.
Yes, some communities ban alcohol within their boundaries. But haven’t you seen the piles of broken bottles at the gates to communities and observed the cream of young adulthood “burning off” to the nearest pub or “stash” in cool creek beds, often killing themselves in the process? Have you not seen the despair and worry of grandparents? How many of these adults have meaningful employment? I agree with Bruce that accentuating the positive is the way to go. What incentives would aboriginal people themselves find helpful? On site training programmes with recognisable qualifications? Gardens which produce fresh vegetables to replace the reliance on deep fries from the store? Cooking classes in schools? Language/cultural/history centres of which all may be proud? I thought that school attendance by all school-age Australian children was compulsory. So why are aboriginal children exempt from attending well funded, well equipped, curriculum suitable schools?
Well said Gregory Phillips nice to see common sense out in the arena with all the hype. I thought it strange to introduce police and army to stop the flow of alcohol and then ask for volunteer medical personel no less, rather than provide support as you point out to help people deal with their problems, the underlying cause of their behaviour and consequent addictions. Alas Mr. Howard really doesn’t like to spend our countries money on anything other than law and order does he? I agree that these measures will not work and I do hope they unravel quickly as you suggest and that Howard, Brough and Pearson take full responsibility for the failure. Ah, but I expect it will be the States fault or some other influence, as nothing is ever this governments fault.
I applaud Gregory Phillips’ article. Our family was appalled by the announcement of this arrogant, paternalistic policy, but have heard few dissenting voices in the media. I acknowledge the problem, but cannot believe this is the answer. Who was consulted to advise on this matter? Did little Johnny just wake up inspired?
Noel Pearson, Clare Martin & NT police all deny being consulted. Were community leaders involved in discussion? if not, then who?
Would anyone countenance this solution being applied to a white community? This cannot be the best answer to the problems besetting the people who live there. I can’t believe there is not more outrage from the public.
Phillips’ article makes far more sense to me.
I feel sick to the stomach. Dear God, we’re going to do it again! It is not unreasonable to think that if settlement aboriginals were suddenly an endangered species of penguin, they would receive a more studied and sensitive approach to their problems. Any government, fixated on their own four year reflection, is culpable in not planning for an empathetic nurturing that will obviously take several generations. To tackle this without tribal inclusion is too close to colonialism. Another brick in our international burden of shame.
Some time ago I wrote a case study for a business school on Aboriginal Economic Development. I am no expert and I an not an Aborigine, but the only way I could see to achieve the aims I was puruing was to put real power in the hands of the people concerned. They needed support and there needed to be accountability in using taxpayers money, but like any other human beings, they needed incentive. I don’t believe a punitive regime will work. Aboriginal people have been subjected to this for two centuries and look where we are.Howard’s reaction has to be an admission that “practical reconciliation” has been a total failure. What is needed is leadership which engages and puts power in the hand of Aborigines
It is difficult to see such a rushed response to what is (and has been for a long time) a shameful situation in some Aboriginal communities, as anything other than a political stunt in an election year.
What would the Australian public’s response be to such an approach to a problem within a different minority group within Australia?
The Canadian government seems to be light years ahead of our government in terms of all apsects of indigenous people’s health. What collaboration has our government had with the Canadian government to see if we have something to learn from the Canadian approach?
Another “children overboard” for John Howard, using emotionalism to mask some very shady operations.
Funny how I recall some of the US mining companies being quite incensed they couldn’t expand their mining operations at Jabiluka and Kakadu. Does John Howard’s Federal “take over” now mean Land Rights are suspended and the mining companies have free rein?
This ludicrous action by the Government smacks of actions that characterised the 19th century stealing of Aboriginal children from their families. Mobilising the Federal Police and the Army upon all Indigenous Australians effectively positions them as an enemy against whom a war is being waged. We’re involved in the “War on Drugs” the “War on Terror”, neither of which have been or will ever be “won”. Now we have the “War on Domestic Violence and Alcholism in Indigenous Communities”. It is ignorant, arrogant, divisive and destructive, but above all a totally shameful election-grabbing tactic.
By the way, does John Howard believe domestic violence and alcoholism are problems only for Indigenous Australians? Clearly he does.
I am 59 years old and have waited all my life to see those acting in my name treat aboriginal people with respect and care. There have been precious few occasions for hope over those years and even fewer for pride. Now I feel as if we have been catapulted back to our deepest shameful past. John Howard (and all those who support his ‘plan’) is transparently playing the race card once more, to win an election. However, I don’t believe that’s all there is to his actions. They demonstrate a deep-seated racial view that finds an ominous echo in the electorate. This is yet another heartbreaking attack on our most precious and disadvantaged people. I despair of my country, although am grateful for places like this, where I can be reminded that we’re not all racist and inhumane swine.
I don’t make light of the fact that many Aboriginal children have been very badly treated and need protection. But consider this…
Do we seriously see the Howard government rounding up a posse of police, to go door to door in suburban Melbourne to find the abused children here in our own backyard? Surely the drinking, violence, truancy and homeless problems here in Victoria are sufficiently serious to declare an ‘emergency’ and send the Army out to pick up homeless people off the streets of Melbourne?
No? Why not? Because we have the numbers to stand up and tell John Howard that we would not tolerate that sort of intrusive treatment, that’s why.
How did it occur to Howard to send the police and Army, when there is no way that the same problem in suburban Melbourne would ever be dealt with in that way?
Scaring people will just drive problems underground and make secrets even more tightly held. What the hell is Howard doing.
Dear Mr Phillips and Everyone:
Far be it for me to stand in the career path of Mr Pearson or any others put up by the media as spokesmen and celebrities …. but I’ve heard all these good ideas - and better - before …. by listening to ordinary blackfellas at various times over a few decades.
If the government and the news media bothered to listen to ordinary blackfellas as well for a chamge, we wouldn’t be subjected to “emergencies”. “crises”, panics and publicity stunts.
John Howard’s latest stunt, which he hopes will win him the election, is a cruel hoax perpetrated on the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory. It holds our a forlorn hope that the terrible situation forced on them by years of deliberate neglect might be alleviated. We can only hope that some good might come of it. We should remember that John Howard does nothing unless he can see in it political advantage, or self aggrandizement. He has an election to win. Grabbing back land rights so that areas, now locked up, may be handed over for uranium miners and for our proposed world uranium dump must be seen as a major motive for this ill concieved and draconian stunt. We should reject this crude stunt and develop a proper plan in consultation with the Aboriginal peoples and implement it , with their participation. Surely we are better people than this stunt suggests.
Not enough attention has been paid to the basic causes of social dysfunction. Around the world you get violence, often including guns, addictions,children not attending school, sexual exploitation, poor health, inadequate housing, unemployment, and the rest in communities which are seriously and chronically materially poor,with little hope in sight. The answer is not passive welfare (except for the aged, very young, sick, etc)but employment. What is need is serious very large and long-term investment in training programs in, for example, (1)the building trades to rebuild isolated towns, (2) careers in the tourism industry, not only for visitors to central Australia but such places as the Gold Coast where there is a wealth of history and great knowledge about the ancient peoples whose descendants still live and work there, the seasons, the wildlife, the changes in plant life, and so on.
It is not an easy task but this is a very wealthy country.
Just how difficult is it for governments, local councils, all relevant agencies including the building industry associations and many others, to work closely with Australia’s beautiful Aboriginal people to achieve decent energy efficient and appropriate housing, decent education and health services, and creating thousands of learnerships in the process?
NOT DIFFICULT AT ALL!
Yet what we have is a very stupid government, totally ignorant of community consultation skills, driving into Aboriginal communities, all ‘guns’ blazing, laying down the law-callous, hypocritical, heavy-handed, ill-prepared and nonsensical treatment?
We are missing out on so many talents withing our black community-talents capable of resolving their own problems. For God’s sake help them to regain their dignity and at least treat them like normal human beings.
I can only imagine the fear that the people of the Aborigines in the NT are feeling at present. I have worked with Aboriginal people in rural Victoria and the biggest barrier that I face is linking people to non Aboriginal services for their health and well being. In their collective living memory is negative experience of government bureaucracy. The policies that took their children away or separated families, regulated them, that made enduring a education in a culturally insensitive environment difficult, that excluded them from work opportunities when Tax laws prevented their simple cash for work existence to dry up, that left Aboriginal organisations to be “set up to fail” I could go on and on. Suffice to say: nothing can be achieved without trust. This latest Federal knee jerk attempt ahead of the looming elections is a stunt that will only achieve an erosion of trust and set back reconciliation across Australia another 20 years.
It’s troubling to see the cynics willing the initiative to fail, seeking to belittle it and portray it as election-driven. The issue, Australians all, is not who hates Howard, it’s about making this initiative work. That will require Aboriginal people to sign on and participate his generation-changing task ahead.
That requires participation and active leadership from the aborignal community. Not from tired leaders of the past (like Lowitja O’Donoghue, now embittered and not a positive influence), nor the corrupt ATSIC mob (like Pat Turner the ATSIC former CEO– what was her shining history here, and that of the ATSIC gang stealing and wasting money), nor the left ‘rightist’ posturers like Larissa Berendt. It requires new generation leaders ready to say ‘enough is enough’ and take a leadership role. Like Noel Pearson. Warren Mundine. Pat Dodson.
In reply to ange, I would say that John Howard’s record of political chicanery and sophistry are enough to make anyone suspicious.
Already, he has used the “aboriginal children” to extend welfare restrictions to the wider community.